Hourglass
by Mighty ANT
Summary: Sandman knew that time was running out. Oneshot /Spoiler Warning/
1. Chapter 1

_**Hourglass**_

_A/N: This entire scene had me in tears, and for some awful reason I found the need to write about it. I'll be seeing this movie again soon, that's for sure :P_

_Please leave a comment and enjoy!_

_Rise of the Guardians belongs to Dreamworks _

* * *

Sandman knew that time was running out.

_His_ time.

Like sand trickling through his fingers, he reflected humorlessly in the back of his mind, the one tiny area that was not encompassed with the virulent need to _survive_.

Pitch's unending wave of nightmares had surrounded him and the little sand cloud that was holding him aloft, an impenetrable blackness closing in on a speck of light. Night blotting out the sun. His arms were tiring, though his sand whips continued snapping at the impermeable mass, whatever gaps he created in the blackness instantly filled by more nightmares. He shuddered to think how many children it had taken to create such power, and how many of his dreams Pitch had tainted.

Rage filled him again—a sensation he rarely felt, a peaceful if easily irritable creature by nature—but as in his prior battle with the Nightmare King, when Sandman had thought Pitch could be defeated by hurling him off a roof (and into a wall or two), fury clouded his vision, fueling his attacks. Pitch had destroyed _his_ dreams, his _children's'_ dreams, and that action was unacceptable. The dreams were all he had, and Sandman would not allow them to be taken. Not anymore, and most certainly not by Pitch.

And so his sand whips strengthened, glowing with the power of his dreamsand, and he attacked the nightmares encircling him with renewed fervor. They only grew in size.

Sandman had turned his back on Pitch. An unwise decision, he knew, but the thickening nightmares demanded his attention. Faintly, he could hear the war cries of his fellow Guardians and felt warmed by the fact that he was not alone. Not really.

He had been thinning the horde, he was sure. He just needed more time. They were all doing their best against this enemy, one they had known and battled for so long, but never on such an uneven playing field. Beneath their courage, selflessness, and bravery, there was a doubt there, he knew. They all had it, festering in the deepest corners of their hearts, but never acknowledged it, Sandman especially. His wild, imaginative dreams always quashed any uncertainty that dared rise. Even now, facing certain demise at the hands of a monster that was everything he wasn't, he did not doubt himself for a second.

But he had turned his back on Pitch.

And no one, not even a small, dreamsand-wielding creature like himself, should disregard the now most powerful being in existence.

And so while he did hear the shouts of his colleagues (_comrades, friends, brothers and sisters, he never told them—_) as they fought for their lives and the lives of their children just as much as he, he did not hear—or perhaps he did not wish to hear—the whisper of a bow and arrow being formed of sand so much like his own, did not search for the hiss of skin against skin as the arrow was pulled back, did not feel for the whoosh of air as it was released—

But he certainly knew_ (heard, felt, prophesized_) its destination.

With a sharp gasp, Sandman felt his whips disintegrate to nothingness. His small hands clutched at the cold air, fruitlessly searching, groping for—for _something (safety, company, refuge, a hand to help pull him out of the darkness)_, and he distantly heard Jack's cry of "Sandy!" though he could not respond.

The arrow that had impaled him so sharply in the back appeared to crumble, but Sandman_ felt it_—felt it slither into his very being, his very _core_. He shuddered, suddenly very cold (_so, so very cold, ice in his stomach and sprouting from his chest, and he couldn't breathe_), his body buckling, and suddenly his cloud of pitiful golden sand was not enough to keep him standing.

The others were calling him now. Jack's voice was the loudest, the most desperate, but Sandman would not—_could not_—answer him, even if his voice was still under his control and his mind was not spiraling away from him.

He had been tainted.

He knew, felt it in every pore, every nerve—the bitterness of silence, their ignorance, crumbling innocence of children. He saw his friends dying around him, without him, watched helplessly as Pitch destroyed them and then every last shred of childhood. The children would lose faith in them eventually, if they had not already. They would fade. Disintegrate like his sand. And what could he do?

Nothing, he knew, as Pitch's black sand crept outward from the impalement in his spine.

Sandman was not accustomed to feeling weak, but now he was insignificant. More than that, even— a speck of sand in a massive hourglass. He knew why Pitch had targeted _him_, the Nightmare King's greatest obstacle. His opposite in every way. But he had fallen prey to fear like all the rest.

What hope was there for dreams when their very embodiment could not contain his own fear?

The process was quick, and frighteningly painful. He felt more than saw the blackness claim his golden clothing, his hands and feet, and it continued upward.

And Sandman did nothing but let it claim him.

There was no fighting fear. No hiding from it. Hide where? In the deepest corners of the Earth it would find him, find everyone…Never before had Sandman wanted to scream and sob at the same time, but had he been in control of his body it would have happened.

He was going to die.

He heard Jack call for him, one final, desperate, apologetic plea, but as the sand of nightmares came up to his throat, Sandman knew the blame truly lied in the hands of the one too weak to repel his fear.

Before the nightmares swallowed him whole, Sandman shut his eyes in case Jack was close by, so he would not see how his golden gaze had been replaced with pitch black.

_I'm sorry. _

And he thought no more.


	2. Chapter 2

_**Timepiece**_

_**A/N: **After so many requests for me to add a second resurrection chapter, how could I deny you all? _

_Many, many thanks for all of your wonderful feedback, and I do hope you enjoy this chapter. All reviews are greatly appreciated :D_

_The fundamentals for this chapter were inspired by some Sandman art on DeviantART by the fantastic Ski-Machine! Be sure to check out her RoTG art. _

_Rise of the Guardians (c) William Joyce & DreamWorks SKG _

* * *

Cold.

It was cold.

It was all he knew—all he cared to know. Icy and dark and dismal and so, _so_ _very cold_. With open eyes he was utterly blind—surroundings that were blacker than black, a night sky without stars pressing fiercely against his eyeballs.

And it was still so very cold.

—_Do__n't fight—_

What was he, anyway?

He did not know. He had never known. Was he a part of the darkness, a shadow of twilight, a Nightmare? Had he ever been anything at all?

—_Kn__ock him out—You said it, Sa—_

The bitter cold cut at him, inside and out, holding him down with invisible chains of frigid iron. Laughter would echo between his ears on occasion, thick and throaty, and chills would rack his body more brutally than before.

Consciousness came slowly, piece by piece, though all that he could think was _cold (and darkness and black and so much fear, a terror of the unknown and the invisible, nightmares of the blind and deaf). _Did freedom ever exist? What did it feel like?

Different, unearthly voices would fill his head, some pleading with him or simply speaking, others conjuring the image of a smile or the warmth of an embrace. Senses quickly followed, and that was how the manacles came to be. He was a prisoner, he knew, but where and of whom he did not know yet again.

Yet if he could remember his name—

—_R__ight on time—We gotta help Sa—fight the fear, little man—_

He was certain that this prison would lose its hold on him. It had to, he assured himself amidst the pain. If his very existence was being kept from him by the _cold_ and the _dark_ and the _chains_ then he would free himself. Somehow.

Something within him not ravaged by the darkness and constricting prison (_his soul, his very being, his _dreams_) _knew that he could not surrender, even if the endless black called him like a lost pet to its master with its siren song, offering infinite rest and liberation from the cold. It was not the freedom he pursued however, and he fought against his prison, no matter how futile.

—_H__ow long—Fear will triumph over—How long can you be—I will always be there—Sweet dreams-_

He lost track of time, if he ever had any, in the abyss that was his jail. The voices came back in waves, stronger each time, more familiar, but there were no faces, no flick of the switch that returned his memories and livelihood to him. The fear was still so very powerful, and every now and then he would feel himself give in the blackness that was somehow deeper and darker and colder than his own. There would be no respite provided there, he now knew.

—_Y__ou do not get enough rest, my friend—Ya dill, are ya' _plannin'_ on dying by lack a' sleep? Ironic considering who you are, but—Before you go, did you remember to floss?—I haven't slept in a while either, you're not alone, buddy—_

But how long could he resist? For how much time had he been imprisoned—the beings connected to those soothing voices could be dead and dust now for all he knew. And he knew very little.

He felt the darkness surge forward, painfully, bitterly close, and some part of him sensed that his captor had grown in strength. His window for escape was swiftly closing, but he did not know what to do. The snippets of voices would not provide him with a name, his or otherwise, and without it freedom was impossible.

He struggled and tore at his unseen shackles, anguish and desperation at their peak. He could not escape unaided, the voices, the voices had not helped him, not really—there were still no names, no faces to benefit him. The voices were a rare comfort, yes, but nothing more. Rarer now than before, for he had not heard them for some time.

Perhaps it was all imagination. A figment, to keep him from the dark. One that was failing him now. It made sense, on some degree, that the voices that kept the cold at bay would be false, a creation of fear and false hope. Would he ever taste freedom, or would the darkness swallow him whole—

And just then, the voices returned, blocking out doubt and fear and cold and even the black.

—_We gotta help Sandy—Don't fight the fear, little man—How can you be believed in forever, Sandman?—Sandy, why didn't you say something?—_

Sandman.

He was the Sandman.

He had a name.

And the darkness was nothing to him now.

All at once his shackles fell apart, nothing more than sand, and the black around him turned to brilliant golden light. The cold morphed into warmth like the one the voices had filled him with. He was needed by his friends (_North, Bunnymund, Tooth, Jack, the children) _and Sandman obliged them, sending the golden warmth from within his cell to bolster them. He was not yet free—the darkness no longer threatened him, not now at least, but in order to obtain complete freedom he would require more, just _barely_ more—he would need something so pitifully small yet enormously powerful—he _needed_—

"_I do believe in you. I'm just not afraid of you."_

And that was it.

His prison melts around him, and he can smell the chilled fresh air that hits him in a rush through his surging Dreamsand cocoon. He senses the presence of the children who brought him back and feels a smile on his forming lips. He is coalescing from his Dreamsand, and can wiggle his fingers and feel his toes and there are no shackles to bind him. He does not allow himself to see darkness, and as soon as his eyes are created he leaves them open to watch the swirling gold that is recreating him.

_And he remembers—remembers Jack's distress, the Guardians' battle, the Nightmares that never ended, and he remembers the arrow, and the pain and cold and his failure and Pitch is laughing at him—_

Soon his body is complete, though he did manage to grab his foe and dump him in the snow before this, preventing him from harming anyone else (_he will never hurt any of his family or his children again, of that Sandman is certain). _

He floats out of his cloud of Dreamsand, skin glittering gold once again, and confidence surges through him as the wonderfully astonished gazes of the children and Guardians land upon him. Pitch looks up at him with horror.

_He will forgive the Nightmare King eventually—_

He is the Sandman.

_But he will never forget the cold and the darkness that tempted him so. _

And he isn't going anywhere.


End file.
